Take one step into the Manhattan apartment of Zachary Quinto and Miles McMillan and you realize that—like many of the best homes—it takes everyone who enters on a journey. The 2,250-square-foot space is neither beautiful nor eclectic simply for the sake of being either—though it most certainly is both of those things. Instead, it’s a true and evocative portrait of where they’ve been, what they’ve experienced, and how they move through the world.

For one thing, the apartment’s open–floor plan alludes to the openness with which they live. It is an attribute both Quinto and McMillan, an actor and a fine artist, instantly adored about the property, and which sold them on the place three years ago. (It was the first apartment they saw when looking for their first home together; despite seeing many others, they kept coming back to it.) “I think that openness will always be a hallmark of whatever home we have together, whether it’s in New York, L.A., or a different environment,” says Quinto. “The open-floor-plan kitchen into the dining and living rooms is something we really love. It doesn’t matter where people are, they’re still able to relate to each other and connect.” The organic pull they felt to the apartment also speaks to the natural way they’ve decorated it over time.

The longtime couple worked with TRNK’s Tariq Dixon and Nick Nemechek as creative partners to help facilitate their vision over the course of approximately two years, slowly accumulating pieces as opposed to filling the two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath NoHo apartment with fluff. “We’re not like, ‘We have to go to ABC Carpet and get this thing.’ We’ll go there, but it’s more about finding the right piece than going to the right place,” says Quinto, the versatile television and stage actor known for memorable roles in Star Trek, Heroes, The Glass Menagerie, and an upcoming Broadway run of The Boys in the Band. Quinto feels television and film memorabilia is more appropriate for an office setting, but theater mementos do find their way into their home, like a gift from costar Cherry Jones. But the couple's travels have added many items to the space, creating an eclectic global aesthetic they feel accurately reflects them.

Though they made the majority of the decisions together, Quinto reveals McMillan was the one with the slight upper hand when it came to veto power. “Miles is a trained fine art painter, he’s got a really strong visual sense,” says Quinto, thoughtfully adding, “and I do too, but I was happy to have Miles’s input on everything and he was happy to have mine. If one person tended to overrule the other person more, though, I have to say it’s probably Miles. There are certain things he’d be like, 'Absolutely not. We’re not doing that.' I’d be like, 'OK, sorry, I thought it would look good!”

Although McMillan concedes that Quinto is probably right on that subject, the couple is so tuned into each other’s taste that they can each trust that a solo call from the other will turn out well. Quinto recently fell in love with some rugs at a market in Morocco, and bought a couple on faith that McMillan would approve; they are now in their kitchen, hallway, and guest bedroom. He’s also taken the lead on acquiring certain art pieces that personally moved him. Still, he says, “I would never make a decision to bring a piece of art into the house that Miles didn’t love. But I am interested in exploring that world a little bit more and opening myself up to collecting in a certain way.”

More often than not, they’re perfectly synced. While on a meditation retreat in Ojai, Quinto was showing McMillan around and they were both taken by a rug at In the Field. “It was sort of like how we found the apartment, like we couldn't not have that,” says McMillan. At another point while visiting Marc Selwyn’s gallery in Los Angeles, they wandered into a backroom and spotted an Allen Ruppersberg piece. “It was different from the pieces of his in the show, and we were like, 'Wait a minute.' It spoke to us, and there was something about it we both really responded to,” says Quinto. It now hangs in their hallway opposite an oil painting by Japanese artist Izumi Kato.

In order to encourage guests to sit in the dining room—instead of hanging in the kitchen—the pair had a long narrow dining table made by North Carolina studio Taracea, the idea being that many people could fit around it in an intimate way. “We got the table to get people closer together, to force people to sit down. It works,” says Miles McMillan. “And it feels really nice.” Behind their dining table is an oil portrait by McMillan, representative of his style, along with a Drew Shiflett paper collage and an Edward Burtynsky photograph.

McMillan’s extensive collection of crystals is something else that speaks to them both. “I forget how it started. I was just drawn to their beauty and energy as objects, but also as tools,” he explains. Now, friends and family often opt to give him crystals as gifts, expanding his collection. Quinto’s become a devotee, too, carrying a few everywhere he goes. “I love that it’s not just about having the collection in the house, it’s about what they mean and how they can benefit him and us,” says Quinto. The only other thing the couple has amassed in similar significance is tapestries from Peru. “We have a collection of those from trips, but it’s more about individual pieces we respond to when we’re traveling—things we feel add to the diversity of the house and deepening that.”

When it comes to individual rooms, the couple had the most fun creating their study, which could be considered a third bedroom. Painted a dark blue early on, it needed brightening. With no windows, they decided to embrace its womb-like nature and create an incubative space that would “nurture creativity and meditation as well,” says Quinto. To give it kinetic energy, they opted for a dynamic hand-designed wallpaper that a TRNK associate found for them. “We looked at a bunch of different patterns and that’s the one we felt most strongly about,” he says of the Kelly Wearstler wall covering, which is in stark contrast to the rest of the apartment’s more neutral palette.

The bookshelves in the living room are another area that shows their range. Styled with inherited heirlooms alongside books and travel finds discovered together, it is obvious evidence of the way the two have blended their lives. “I love that part of our experience of cohabitating,” says Quinto. “The bringing things from our past that are important to us as individuals and things from the life we’re building together. That's what builds and strengthens our relationship.”

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